tirsdag 1. november 2016

Don't develop your film this way

I woke up this morning and quickly decided it looked like a very nice day to get a few films developed. In other words it was not a nice day at all. At least not on the outside of the house, if you see what I mean. Rain came in like thrown out of huge buckets, and it came horizontally. A bit breezy, as we also call it.So I fetched a few films, mixed some D-76 to throw the film into, went into another room to get my can containing 5 liters of fix... and went on with the work.

Ilford Pan 400, testing the first film of this batch. I could obviously have been a bit more lucky with the development of the stuff, but you have to read about that below. The snaps taken outside seems to be nice enough. All snaps done on the old german rangefinder. This is the 50mm lens, it seems.

First film developed, fix in for about ten minutes as I usually do, then a quick rinse before I open to check that everything looks good. Well, it did not look good at all to tell you the truth. I'm just seeing some kind of grey haze, and in a split second I am thinking exhausted fix, and throws the film back into the darkness before I empty the 5 litre can to mix up a new one. Everything good so far.After a short while I'm ready for a new round of fix. Throwing in the new solution and starting the watch for another ten minutes. Then, somewhere halfway into the process I realize the disaster! My can of "Fix" is very clearly marked, at least at four different spots with the text: "Ilford Multigrade Paper Developer".Well, that works a bit different than fix normally would do, I would think?!So, I finished the fix bath and checked the film visually for a few moments. Does not look too bad, actually. I'm in the process of scanning it right now, so you will see a couple of examples around here.

See? People are whining about on all the bad weather they have in Bergen all the time. Rain and wind and nothing good at all. It was fine here on this day, but then again it was during the very long dry period we just had. We see nothing of that now, as it happens. I guess the water basins are soon to be quite full, again...

Worst thing was probably that I threw away 5 liters of fully functional fix, and 5 liters of absolutely fresh multigrade paper developer. Some days you should just have stayed in bed for a few more hours, I guess.

I kind of liked this one. The snap, that is. I just had to stop right here because of the people you see right there. How come that people have to shout loudly to each other when being out in the perfectly silent nature on a nice day? I guess these folks are about 6 meters apart, or something like that. Even so you would hear them from a very, very long distance. Not only could you hear them, but you could also very clearly hear what they were talking about.

Next thing I screwed up was the development of a film I was absolutely sure was a medium format roll of HP5. Well, turned out to be the "Ultrafine 400" I told you about a few days ago. The one they say is nothing like HP5 at all. I have not been studying that one yet, but there are information visible so I guess I'm getting something from it anyway.

We walked up here for a while. It was quiet (for the most part) and the terrain was easy to walk in. I even thought of snapping a few trees, as you see. It was a nice day with the suns rays finding their way down through the branches and everything.

A not too fine day then, but I guess stuff like this will happen every now and then. After all it's nothing worse happened than a couple of wasted films. I seem to do a lot of that anyway, so this is not going to give me any sleepless night :))

What a disaster, Roy - best forget it, move on, "Nothing to see here" kind of thoughts. At least you recovered the masterpieces. I've done similar myself, but not on such a grand scale...not read what I marked on the container. D'oh!

Thank you again, Michael.I actually printed a few from this film in the darkroom today. They came out not too bad, to be honest. I got a few snaps taken indoors late in the evening and they appear with some kind of strange aura... don't know how to explain it in other words. It was a huge mistake, but only a very few frames is directly ruined because of the mistake. So, I will easily forget this bummer and move on towards the next one :))